


Buried Deep Beneath the Ground

by defenselesswriter



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post 3a, Student-Teacher Relationship, sterek, teacher!Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-04 21:09:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defenselesswriter/pseuds/defenselesswriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The second semester of junior begins with a new yet familiar history teacher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry this isn't an update to all of my unfinished fics but it's something, right?

Stiles wakes up with a start, sitting up straight in his bed and just barely trapping the scream in his throat before it escapes and wakes up his dad. He takes a moment to steady his breathing as he wipes the sweat from his forehead. A groan escapes from his mouth when he sees the time. Four in the morning, and there is no way in hell that he will be able to fall back asleep, so he does what he always does.

He throws on a shirt and a pair of sweats with a hoodie before lacing up his running shoes. Then Stiles is out into the frigid morning air, running towards the woods. The woods make him calmer, allow him to breathe in the fresh air and relax. Minutely, of course. Stiles has been on alert since the whole darach and alpha pack shit-fest that was his life a few months ago.

Today is the first day of the new semester. Only one more semester until he’s a senior and what the hell is he going to do when he graduates? It’s not like he can just up and leave when they are facing attack like nobody’s business from forest nymphs to dragons. It’s been a really crazy four months here in Beacon Hills, and there’s no sign of it ever calming down. So Stiles’ big plans of getting out of this small town for college have been thrown out the window.

Not that he’s bitter about it.

He runs down the sidewalk, keeping his eyes in front of him and not looking at the houses of suburbia. He can’t fully breathe until his eyes land on the forest. He picks up the pace and listens to the crunching of the leaves, letting the sound fill his thoughts and running away from the darkness lingering in his thoughts. He can make it through this.

After a half an hour of running, Stiles slows to a jog, wiping the sweat from his forehead as he starts to take in the scenery. He stops, realizing how close he is to the Hale house. He runs a hand through his hair as he thinks about last summer.

_Stiles is sitting on the couch in the loft, laptop resting on the coffee table as he searches through different leads. His eyes are getting tired, but he has to do this. He has to find Erica and Boyd or at least help._

_The front door opens, and Stiles looks up, foolishly hopeful that Derek found something, but after one look at Derek’s dejected face, he knows the two werewolves are still missing. His heart sinks slightly, but he puts on a brave smile for the alpha, patting the empty spot on the couch next to him._

_Derek doesn’t say anything as he walks over and sits on the couch, sitting so close to Stiles that their sides are pressed up against each other. Stiles has the urge to fill the silence, but he doesn’t because he knows there is nothing he can say to make Derek feel any better, so he put his hand on the back of the alpha’s neck, burying his fingers into the dark hair._

_As he reads through the stuff on his laptop, he lets his fingers play with Derek’s hair. After a few minutes of silence, he can feel the werewolf relax into his touch, sighing slightly as he finally lets out a breath of air._

_“Thank you,” Derek whispers under his breath._

_Stiles doesn’t answer, just keeps slipping his fingers through the strands of hair, his thumb softly caressing the skin right behind Derek’s ear. And for the first time, Stiles doesn’t feel the need to fill the silence._

The house still looks the same as it did the last time he was here almost a year ago. He takes a deep, shaky breath and heads back to his house, jogging instead of running this time. It’s been four months of this, and Scott claims it gets easier for him every day, but Stiles has noticed only a small difference. The only time he ever feels close to normal anymore is when he is running through the forest.

Once Stiles is home, he takes a quick shower before getting ready for school. His dad is up by the time he is ready. The sheriff is in the kitchen in his uniform, making breakfast. Their relationship has been better. There are less secrets than ever before. There are still secrets, but getting the werewolf secret out definitely lifted a heavy weight off of Stiles’ shoulders. It is easier having the sheriff’s department’s help for some of the monster. It makes it easier to keep the civilians safe.

It also made it more difficult for Stiles to ever help since his dad was very adamant about him staying safe.

_“You’re only human,” his dad would say to him._

_“But I can still help,” Stiles would fight back, and only one time did he ever fight back with something that he regretted once the words left his mouth. “Mom would want me to help.”_

_Since then his dad let him help with only a few arguments and then a defeated expression saying, “Be careful.”_

“Good morning,” the sheriff greets his son, flipping a pancake over onto a plate. “Do you want any?”

Stiles eyes the pancakes with a frown and shakes his head. “No thanks. I’m just gonna stick with cereal today.” He gets out the box, filling a bowl with cereal and milk before grabbing a spoon and sitting at the table. The room is quiet as the two Stilinski men eat. Before, Stiles would be chattering away about something, but he doesn’t have anything to say now, doesn’t feel the need to fill the silence. His dad has always been a man of few words.

“I’ll see you later tonight,” his dad says as he rinses off his dishes before leaving the house.

Stiles watches him leave as he chews, listening to the car start up and then driving down the street. He stares at his empty bowl once he’s finished for a few moments, thinking he sees something in there before rinsing it out. After grabbing his backpack and keys, he jumps into the jeep to drive to school, not knowing what to expect.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles meets up with Scott on his way to his locker and gives his best friend a tight smile. "Yo, Scotty."

Scott beams at him, leaning against the locker next to Stiles’. “How are you, buddy?”

Stiles learned pretty early on that he can’t lie to Scott about the darkness, so he doesn’t, but he also doesn’t tell him everything. “Same,” Stiles answers quietly. “Had another nightmare last night.”

Scott’s eyes trace over his best friend’s face and sighs. “What time did you wake up this morning?” he asks, but before Stiles can answer, Scott’s head snaps to the side with a frown scrunching up his face as he searches for something. After a moment he visibly relaxes.

“What’s up?” Stiles asks. “You kinda went all Lassie on me for a second.”

Scott laughs once, rolling his eyes. “I just thought I smelled something familiar.”

Stiles lets it go and takes out his history textbook, walking with Scott to their first class of the day, history. Scott is explaining what Allison has been doing over break. She and her dad have been road-tripping around the country to teach hunters the new code. Before she left, she was very adamant about if they need help she will be back as soon as possible since she knows the danger that is Beacon Hills.

Stiles is only half listening to his best friend as they walk into their classroom. His eyes automatically scan the room for danger, a habit he picked up over the last year. Some may call it paranoid, but he calls it cautious because danger has literally been everywhere in this stupid town.

But Stiles doesn’t expect to find what he does.

He stops in his tracks, his slowly traveling up a very familiar body until his eyes are lined up with Derek’s, the man already staring back at him from behind a pair of glasses. Those are definitely new. Stiles doesn’t know what to think as he searches through Derek’s eyes, but he looks around again, double checking danger because why else would Derek Hale be in his history class?

“Derek?” Scott finally blurts out.

The older man’s eyebrows lift warningly and how can he still form full sentences using only his eyebrows? The bell rings around them, leaving Stiles and Scott the only ones still standing. “You can have a seat,” Derek says, gesturing to the two empty desks in the second row since most of the girls and Danny had secured seats in the front, all looking very interested in the man in glasses and…is that a _cardigan_?

Stiles and Scott sit down next to each other, both still speechless.

“I’m Mr. Hale, your new history teacher,” the werewolf says, and Stiles can’t believe it. How did Derek even get a teaching degree in four months? Doesn’t that kind of thing take like four years of college at least? Not four _months_.

The new teacher goes through the attendance sheet and then keeps saying things, but Stiles isn’t completely sure because Derek Hale is in glasses and a cardigan at the front of his classroom pretending to be a teacher. Stiles has never been more confused and maybe slightly turned on. The man still looks good. He’s always been hot, and Stiles was always ready to admit that, but this is different.

Derek’s face looks softer; his eyes aren’t as hard and aren’t on a constant look out for a threat or looking tired. He slimmed down a bit after returning back to beta, but it doesn’t look bad. He still looks hot as hell, in a _cardigan and glasses what the actual fuck_.

“Excuse me, Mr. Stilinski?” Derek asks, interrupting Stiles’ thoughts.

Stiles does his best impression of a fish out of water as he looks at his new history teacher then to Scott for help. “You were mumbling under your breath,” Scott says, looking slightly embarrassed for his friend.

“Shit,” he whispers, looking back up at Derek with a frown. “What did I say?”

“Enough to get you a detention,” the hot teacher answers, pulling a slip from his desk and filling out. Shit. Stiles’ dad is not going to be happy about him getting a detention the first day of the semester. Way to go, Stiles.

The slip is set on his desk, and Stiles refuses to look up at Derek but does look to see him walk away because that ass is still pretty great. Then he actually reads the slip and in Derek’s messy writing it says, _We need to talk_.

Stiles dares to look up at his new teacher who is already staring at him with a mixture of worry and slightly amusement. Stiles shoots a smile back at Derek before folding up the detention slip and slipping it into his backpack.

*******************

“Whatcha need, teach?” Stiles asks, closing the classroom door behind him and leaning against, not even trying to stop his eyes from traveling over Derek’s body. “I missed you,” he finally whispers.

Derek looks up from the papers on his desk, pushing his glasses up his nose to give Stiles the same appraisal. “You look different,” he says, leaning back in his chair.

Stiles walks over, dropping his backpack on the floor before sitting on the desk, his legs touching Derek’s. “So do you,” Stiles replies. “How’s Cora?”

Derek’s lips twitch slightly at the mention of his sister. “We went to New York, and she found a pack there. They’re really great.”

“But you didn’t stay?”

Derek shakes his head but knows what Stiles was really asking. “It wasn’t home.”

Stiles bobs his head, meeting Derek’s eyes again and just staring, unsure if this is just another one of his hallucinations. Those stopped about a month ago, but the darkness is unpredictable. Also, the hallucinations were always of bad things, not good things like Derek Hale in one piece in front of him looking the closest to happy Stiles has ever seen him.

“What did you want to talk about?” Stiles asks.

Derek just stares for a moment before looking down at his hands in his lap. “I just wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“Everything,” Derek says softly, looking back up. “You did a lot for me last year, and I never got to thank you for last summer.”

Stiles laughs bitterly. “Thank me for last summer? Where I sat on your couch and did nothing? Where even if I did help, all it did was find them too late. Erica was already dead.” Stiles looks away from Derek because he can’t face him, not while thinking of the blonde werewolf that he misses so desperately. Yeah, she hit him over the head with a part of his baby, but she didn’t deserve to die, and she was actually a decent person once she got over the power trip of being a werewolf.

“You can’t blame yourself for that,” Derek tells him, a hand resting on Stiles’ thigh.

Stiles looks down at it, swallowing hard. He thought he had gotten over Derek. It’s not like they were ever together, but they both knew there was something between them. Stiles thought those feelings were gone, but they’re not. Not even close.

“Yes, I can,” Stiles says, focusing on the conversation and not the way he feels about his history teacher. “It was my fault. I should’ve figured it all out sooner. Why didn’t I get it sooner?”

Derek doesn’t answer immediately, just stares at the teenager on his desk. “You can’t blame yourself for Erica for the same reason I can’t blame myself for Boyd.”

Stiles’ throat closes up at the reminder of seeing Derek’s devastated face just staring at Boyd’s body, tears pooling in the alpha’s eyes for the first time Stiles had seen. His hand immediately goes to cover the one on his thigh, wrapping his fingers around it and holding tightly.

“How?” Stiles asks, unable to finish the sentence. Derek squeezes his hand to give him the courage to continue. “How did you stop blaming yourself?”

“I haven’t,” Derek whispers, his voice barely loud enough for Stiles to hear. “Logically, I know it’s not my fault, but every other part of me screams that I killed him, that it was my claws that killed him, so it was my fault.”

Stiles lets his head drop, his eyes closing tightly before snapping his head up, tearing his hand away from Derek’s, and jumping off the desk. “Then you can’t give me shit about blaming myself for Erica and whatever else is my fault. Don’t be a hypocrite.”

Derek just watches him, slightly surprised but more worried than before. “Stiles, are you okay?”

“No,” Stiles admits, picking up his back and walking towards the door. He stops for a second to say, “I don’t think I ever will be again,” before opening the door and walking away from the room, the conversation, and from Derek.


	3. Chapter 3

 

“So is anyone else a little freaked out?” Stiles asks as he opens the door to Scott’s house, already knowing that Lydia and Scott are waiting for him in the living room.

“Freaked out by what, Stiles?” Lydia asks, her perfectly perfect eyebrows raising slightly. “The fact that Derek Hale is our teacher or the man that you used to have a major crush on is your history teacher?”

“Wait…what?” Scott exclaims as Stiles crashes onto the couch with a groan.

“Both, Lyds, both,” he answers in a grumble.

“Back up,” Scott instructs. “ _What_?”

“You seriously didn’t notice your best friend had a huge crush on Derek?” Lydia asks in a voice that makes it sound like she pities him for being so stupid. It’s one Stiles’ favorite voices when it’s not directed at him.

Scott snaps his head to look at Stiles with wide eyes with hurt and confusion written on his face. “You had a crush on Lydia,” he tells his best friend.

Stiles shrugs. “I had an obsession with Lydia. I had a _thing_ with Derek.”

“A thing?” Lydia asks, this time confused but she doesn’t look confused, just angry because there’s something she doesn’t know, and that always pisses her off.

Stiles delegates his attention from his best friend to Lydia. “Yes, a thing. Nothing ever happened, but I’m about 95% sure that the feelings were mutual. Or are. I guess I need to use present tense now that he’s back.”

“You have a thing with Derek, our _teacher_?” Scott asks.

“No, Scotty. Keep up. I _had_ a thing with Derek, who is now currently our teacher. The feelings _are_ mutual because it seems like neither of us got over our feelings.”

“Sometimes I doubt why you’re the true alpha,” Lydia says on a sigh as she goes back to doing her math homework.

Scott frowns over at her with a hurt look on his face, so Stiles pats his shoulder comfortingly. “You’re getting better at the whole leadership thing,” Stiles tells him to cheer him up. “I’m getting the urge to kiss you again. Wanna try?”

“I’m sure Derek wouldn’t like that,” Scott teases back, and Stiles smiles at his best friend.

“Sometimes I wonder why you two haven’t gotten together,” Danny says as he walks into the room. He sets down his backpack and joins Scott and Stiles on the couch, pulling his laptop out of his bag. “So can we please talk about how we have the hottest history teacher in the entire world and when he actually shows an interest in a boy, making all the gay guys hopeful, it’s Stiles fucking Stilinski?”

“Can we not talk about it?” Stiles suggests, picking at a thread on his hoodie.

“I didn’t know you were attracted to guys, Stiles,” Scott adds in.

The three of them all give Scott looks ranging from _really, Scott?_ from Danny and Stiles and a pitying look from Lydia, who starts mumbling about being surrounded by idiots.

“Jesus, Stiles,” Scott curses after all the looks go away. “What else have I not picked up on?”

“You also don’t notice how utterly annoying he is,” Danny throws in, typing away on his laptop.

“Hey!” Stiles exclaims, offended.

Danny gives him a considering look that turns into a sad look as he shrugs. “It’s not as bad lately. Obviously since I keep hanging out with you idiots.”

“Amen,” Lydia calls out without looking up from her notebook.

“So let’s talk about it!” Danny says cheerfully, looking at Stiles instead of his laptop. “You and Derek, yeah?”

“Derek’s back?” a voice calls out from the kitchen.

Stiles sighs and then gives Scott a confused look. Isaac should have heard the entire conversation before now and how did Isaac not hear or smell Derek in the school?

“He’s still working on the super hearing,” Scott whispers. “He’s kinda sensitive about it, so don’t bring it up.”

“Yo, Isaac, your wolfy powers are pathetic,” Stiles yells to the kitchen.

“Dick!” Isaac calls back while Scott elbows him in the ribs.

“Boys, play nice,” Lydia chastises, and Stiles thinks she has to have more superpowers than just being a Banshee because she didn’t look up once but still heard and saw the entire exchange. Stiles still may be slightly in love with her. But not romantically. More in a way where he’s constantly admiring everything she does. Just not as creepily anymore. Or aloud. Most of it’s in his head now.

“Okay, Mom,” Stiles, Scott, and Isaac say at the same time as the latter walks into the room with a plate of nachos.

“Oooh, gimme!” Stiles squirms, trying to reach the plate, but the freakishly tall werewolf keeps his plate away from Stiles’ grabby hands. “What? No fair!” Stiles yells as Danny is allowed to grab a chip covered in delicious, gooey cheese from Isaac’s plate.

“You can get some when you talk about you and Derek,” Isaac answers, folding himself into the armchair next to Danny.

Stiles groans because his stupid friends are holding nachos above him, and everyone knows no one can say no to nachos. “So last summer, while I was helping Derek look for Erica and Boyd,” Stiles starts.

“You were helping Derek find Erica and Boyd?” Scott asks, confused again. “Stiles, seriously. Where the hell was I?”

“Studying your ass off and getting over Allison,” Stiles answers easily. “Do you want to hear this or are you going to keep interrupting me?”

Scott makes a show of completely closing his mouth so that Stiles can go on. “Anyway. Derek and I got kind of close that summer. We never did anything, but there was something, okay?”

“Touching?” Danny asks, which makes Lydia finally look up from her homework.

Stiles shrugs. “Comfort touching and some cuddling.”

Scott looks pained at the mental image, Lydia looks intrigued, Danny looks proud, and Isaac has a very passive look. Isaac was also there and saw most of it for himself.

“So why are we talking about this now?” Isaac asks in a bored tone as he pops a chip in his mouth.

Stiles just glares at the nachos that he isn’t allowed to have and sighs. “Because Derek is back, and I’m pretty sure the feelings are still there for both of us.”

“So?” Isaac asks.

Stiles gives him a look that says Isaac can answer his own question, but Lydia and Danny are giving him the same look. “So he’s my teacher. That’s illegal and wrong on many levels.”

“So?” Lydia prompts, closing her textbook so she can cross her legs and lean forward in her chair. “Who’s going to tell? You or Derek?”

“What if we get caught?” Stiles asks.

“Your dad is the sheriff,” Danny chimes in.

“Which makes it worse. He can’t cover up for his son breaking the law. That could lose him his job.” _Again_ Stiles wants to add, but lets it hang in the air. He isn’t going to be responsible for that again. It sucked way too much the first time for Stiles to risk it again.

“Beacon Hills needs some gossip,” Lydia says with a shrug. “Plus, how hot is the student-relationship situation? You won’t even have to role play.”

Stiles just rolls his eyes at her because no matter how often she shows her dirty side, Stiles will always be surprised that this perfect strawberry-blonde woman thinks about sex just as much as he does. “You know what?” Stiles stands, making his decision. “I’m not going to look back on this in a few years, regretting that I never did and constantly thinking about what-if. So I’m gonna go for it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think there's only going to be one more chapter after this, but I may make it into a series and add little oneshots in this 'verse because I fucking want to.


	4. Chapter 4

Stiles doesn’t go for it. Not that day. He talks himself out of it halfway there, so he just goes home and does his homework like the good student he is. Though he did have plenty of fantasies of failing Derek’s class telling the man he would do _anything_ for an A, Mr. Hale.

Yeah, he has problems, okay? Everyone knows that.

That night, he goes to bed, and the inevitable happens; another nightmare. But for the first time, it’s not about Stiles’ endless guilt for the people who have died in his life. It isn’t about how he killed his mom, or his dad yelling at him for doing so. It isn’t about his dad getting ravaged by werewolves or getting caught in the crossfire between the hunters and werewolves or getting killed by any other creature. It isn’t about Boyd or Erica in the basement with Gerard, fear filling their eyes because there was literally nothing they could do to save themselves, and there was nothing Stiles could do except watch them be tortured and then die in that basement even though Stiles knows that’s not how they died.

It’s none of those things. It’s about Derek. It’s about Derek being killed in the Hale fire and Stiles being the one to light the match. It’s about hearing all of the Hale family screaming for help and watching them try to escape even though they’re all trapped. It’s about Derek staring Stiles right in the eye as the teenager stands and watches the family die. It’s about the look in Derek’s eye, the hurt and betrayal filling those eyes.

Stiles wakes up with a start again and then sighs, rubbing his face and try to rub away the dream, trying to get rid of the look on Derek’s face. So Stiles goes about his normal routine, putting his sweats and hoodie on, lacing up his running shoes, and going to get the fresh air.

He’s running in the forest when he starts to hear the crunching of leaves from the side. He looks over and sees Derek running towards him.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Derek says, not even sounding remotely winded.

Stiles shrugs and wipes at his forehead. “I like running.”

Derek looks confused for a moment and just stares for a few seconds before answering. “Says the guy who made me grab his coffee for him even though it was three feet away and I was in the kitchen.”

Stiles just shrugs. “It helps, okay? Does it matter?”

There’s silence now, and Derek just studies Stiles like it’s the first time he has ever seen him like Stiles has really changed that much.

“So you’re a teacher now,” Stiles says, changing the subject because he doesn’t want to talk about it. “Every girl is drooling over you.”

Derek laughs once, rolling his eyes. “You jealous, Stiles?”

He just shrugs, leaning his back against a tree. “Doesn’t matter if I am.”

“It doesn’t?” Derek asks.

Stiles shakes his head. “You’re my teacher. I can’t make any moves on you even if I wanted to.”

“Do you want to?” Derek takes a step closer to Stiles.

Stiles takes a deep breath, holding for a moment as he run his eyes over Derek in his running gear. The tight shirt and the shorts even though it’s freezing outside. He’s a werewolf and doesn’t get cold. Whatever. It’s still not fair that he is this walking wet dream, and Stiles isn’t allowed to have him.

“Fuck it,” Stiles mumbles before taking a few steps forward and grabbing Derek’s face, pulling it to his. He pauses, waiting for Derek to move the last inch and seal the deal, which he does with no hesitation, their lips pressing together.

The feel of Derek’s beard on his cheeks and chin along with the sensation of his lips on the werewolf’s is enough to make Stiles breathless and wanting more. Derek’s hands grip onto Stiles’ hips, pulling him flush against the man. Then they’re stumbling back so Stiles’ back is on the tree again.

“Definitely worth it,” Stiles says breathlessly as Derek’s lips attack his neck. He tries to bite back a moan when there are teeth scraping against the side of his neck and who the hell knew that felt so damn good?

Derek pulls back, resting his forehead against Stiles’. “Definitely worth it,” he whispers his agreement, and Stiles thinks that maybe, just maybe they can get away with this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted this to be better, but it didn't happen like that, and I'm sorry >.


End file.
